Inspired by true events, The Last Woman is the story of three young women whose lives become intertwined as they flee up the Mississippi River in 1877. Within a year, two of them take off for Dodge City, reluctantly leaving their friend behind in St. Louis. Six decades later, the most adventurous soul among them, discarding her given name of Catherine, has become the last woman in Tascosa, Texas—once the wildest cowtown in the West.
We meet her when she's eighty years old, re-living and reflecting on her past, the fate of her friends, and the perils of other women for whom escape to the West was an act born of desperation. She has been living under an alias since 1878, hoping that no one else will track her down.

The journey of the novel's protagonist follows the real life travels of Frenchy McCormick, sometimes called the last of the "golden girls" of the Old West, but the heart of The Last Woman is the struggle of the young women to sustain their friendships and forge independent lives in the face of violence, abuse, and religious condemnation.